New Zealand Awards First-Ever Medical Cannabis Growing License

The island nation of New Zealand has never taken a very kind approach to marijuana, as evidenced by the military-supported drug raids New Zealand law enforcement agencies conduct every year over the country’s vast hinterlands. Under the 1975 Misuse of Drugs Act, possessing any amount of cannabis for any reason is illegal. There have been attempts to decriminalize it and even efforts to legalize medical marijuana. But all have failed to end the blanket prohibition on New Zealand weed.

With the rise to power of a progressive government coalition of Greens and the Labour Party, however, cannabis policy is beginning to change in New Zealand. The new governing coalition has vowed to move forward on a medical cannabis bill this year. And already, authorities have licensed the nation’s first medical cannabis cultivation center.

Industrial Hemp Facility To Get Medical Cannabis Makeover

In the tiny North Island town of Ruatoria in New Zealand, there’s a little-known medical cannabis research company. Hikurangi Cannabis, named after the rural settlement and formerly Hikurangi Hemp, has been operating a small industrial hemp grow to supply researchers with CBD. And now it’s getting a major makeover.

After winning a license to cultivate medical cannabis exclusively for research,